


Autism and Photosynthesis

by borderlinecritical (skulls_and_stripes)



Series: Eating is so gross! [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: ARFID, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Autistic Pearl (Steven Universe), Autistic Peridot (Steven Universe), Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, Eating Disorders, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-18 00:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21518950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/borderlinecritical
Summary: Food is gross. The entire concept of eating something, then digesting it? Disgusting. But Pearl can't gain her nutrition from autism and photosynthesis...Five times Pearl declined the offer of free food and one time she actually asked (and still went hungry).
Relationships: Amethyst & Pearl (Steven Universe)
Series: Eating is so gross! [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546321
Comments: 11
Kudos: 72





	Autism and Photosynthesis

You joined an a capella group for your high school.

Why not, you thought. It was an opportunity to sing and hang out with a few friends. You talked your parents into signing the permission slip and sat next to Peridot on the bus.

The bus arrived at your destination a few minutes ago, and now you’re waiting around for it to be time to practice. It’s lunchtime now. Free food is provided.

You hate when people give you free food.

It’s sushi. You have never eaten sushi in your life and you’re not about to start now. When someone politely gives you a paper plate full of the stuff, you don’t even attempt to eat it. You shove it toward Amethyst without a word, and she barely mumbles a “thank you” as she shoves it ungracefully into her mouth.

Amethyst is relatively unconcerned, but the other members of their little group don’t have an extra helping of sushi to pacify them. Peridot shoots you a worried look, Garnet frowns, and Lapis raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you eating?”

“I’m not really hungry,” you lie.

“You sure?”

You realise you don’t really have a good explanation. You shoot Peridot a pleading look. She’s the only person here who knows the full extent of your issues, who understands why you’re not eating. You hope she’ll offer an explanation.

“Pearl doesn’t really need to eat food,” explains Peridot, ignoring your raised eyebrow, and with comical beads of sweat falling down her face from the stress of thinking up a convincing lie. “She gets her energy from autism and photosynthesis.”

Amethyst spits out her sushi.

You flinch.

“Peri, dude,” she laughs, holding up her hand for Peridot to high-five. “How does that even work?”

It’s a ridiculous thing to say, not to mention untrue -- you do need to eat, you’re not a plant, and you have no idea how autism could possibly provide nutrients -- but it’s distracting, at least. The nonsensical claim is able to take attention away from your refusal to eat; it’s hard to worry about whether the skinny girl is going to be okay with skipping lunch when you’re busy arguing over whether said skinny girl is a plant, and whether autism is a source of energy.

You go into the main hall to practice a few minutes later. The notes are higher than Mount Everest because whoever arranged this score hates sopranos and your voice is exhausted before you’re halfway done. Luckily you have a bottle of water that you can sip from to save your throat.

You drink as much water as you can and it still doesn’t help. Your stomach growls the entire time you’re practicing.

You don’t regret giving Amethyst the sushi.

* * *

Your school has a club that meets up on Wednesday. It’s called Reading Cafe. That’s a bit of an uncreative term. You just go to the library, read a book, and the librarian gives you free food, which you don’t eat.

Most people are just there for the food. Amethyst grabs a random comic and pretends to read it while the teacher’s looking. Peridot is usually reading some sort of Pokemon manga and you think you’ve caught Garnet with a Minecraft handbook. You’re the only person who’s only there for the reading.

As always, you grab a glass of water as you walk in. You like cold water. It’s basically the only drink you like, apart from coffee. (Skim flat white, and by that you mean completely flat, heated to exactly sixty degrees. You won’t accept anything else. People look at you weird when you order skim, because how could someone as thin as you possibly want to lose weight? They think you’re insane when you explain that it tastes different.)

You sit down with your fantasy novel, next to Amethyst and Peridot and the others. You sip on your water periodically and allow yourself to be too busy with the story to notice the chatter and eating around you. 

Your ears perk up slightly when you see Amethyst nudging Peridot out of the corner of your eye, and hear something that sounds suspiciously like, “Dude, do you know why she’s not eating?”

You calm down a little when Peridot winks at her, then at you, and says, “I told you, autism and photosynthesis.”

Well. That’s something. It seems to be rapidly becoming your default excuse for not eating, even though it wasn’t you who originally thought of it. Still, you’re grateful that Peridot has managed to make an excuse for you, even if it is a little nonsensical.

You’ll eat when you get home.

* * *

The first time you go to Amethyst’s house, it’s a little daunting. You neglected to mention your eating habits prior to the day, because you’ve seen Amethyst, and she’ll eat just about anything. The things that you consider to be a disgusting excuse for food are just a regular snack to her. You’ve even seen her eating paper, in math class, on the grounds that if she eats the worksheets then the teacher can’t make her do math.

So she’s bound to have something you can eat, right?

Apparently not. Because Amethyst will eat just about anything you put in front of her, yes, but her favourites are almost exclusively junk food -- greasy over-processed meats and desserts that she thinks will suffice as meals. And she doesn’t really bother to keep foods other than her favourites in the house.

At one PM, she decides it’s time for lunch, and you neglect to mention that you’ve been starving for an hour and you don’t understand how a person can have lunch after noon. Because she’ll be suspicious if you mention that you’re hungry and then refuse to eat. She puts some leftover KFC in the microwave for herself and tells you to help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge.

There’s nothing edible in the fridge.

“I’m not hungry.”

Amethyst raises an eyebrow. “Dude, you’re never hungry.”

“I don’t need to eat much.”

“But like, if you never eat, where are you getting your energy from?”

“Autism and photosynthesis,” you answer without missing a beat. 

God, Peridot’s a bad influence on you.

Amethyst snorts. “Nerd.” She shoves reheated KFC into her mouth and drops the subject.

* * *

There’s a hole in the fence around your school, a McDonald’s right across the road from said hole, and somehow none of the teachers have caught on. 

They don’t notice when kids suspiciously vanish during lunch and show up late to their next class, or when they use the bathroom for twenty minutes and come back with a Big Mac. Or possibly they notice it, but choose not to acknowledge it, because suspending a student is rather a lot of work and saying they had no idea anyone left school grounds is easy.

Either way, it’s no surprise to you when Amethyst says in a hushed voice during lunch, “McDonald’s is on me, anyone want anything?”

Your impulse is to snitch, but you force yourself not to. She’s not harming anyone and besides, snitches get bullied. But when everyone puts in an order except you, she’s suspicious. “Psst, P, you sure I can’t bribe you not to tell?”

“I won’t tell,” you insist. “Besides, I’m not hungry.”

“Dude, it’s lunchtime.”

As always, Peridot, as the local nerd, is able to come to your rescue. “Time is a construct, Amethyst, lunchtime doubly so.”

“Ugh, whatevs.” You have a nagging feeling the only reason she’s trusting you not to snitch is that Garnet and Lapis wouldn’t let you, and the only reason she’s not buying you something is because she wants more money for herself. 

Still, you’re not complaining.

* * *

This teacher, apparently, will give you food.

You don’t actually want food. 

But Lapis does, and Amethyst apparently knows exactly which teachers are willing to give you free food, so all of you are being dragged along on this completely pointless journey to someone’s staffroom. 

Amethyst knocks on the door with uncharacteristic politeness, and when a teacher answers it, she spends a few seconds talking about how hungry her friend is in much the same way that a dog will inevitably try to convince its owner that it hasn’t eaten in sixteen years every time the owner is eating chicken.

The teacher just gives an annoyed sigh. 

Amethyst opens the fridge. She’s first to dig in, even though Lapis was their original reason for coming, grabbing a few hamburgers and turning on the microwave. Lapis takes a sandwich. Peridot grabs some sort of pumpkin cake thingy. Even Garnet, who usually eats only what the cafeteria gives her, takes a banana.

You stand there awkwardly.

You’d like to eat a banana, which is odd, because you can’t eat bananas. They’re one of the few foods that you’ve genuinely wanted to build a tolerance for. The first time you bite a banana, it always tastes good, and then the second bite is a little less good, and then the third bite is the absolute most you can possibly have.

“Hey, P, you want something?”

You shake your head. “I’m not really hungry.” It’s not a lie, this time -- you’ve already eaten at lunch and you don’t really need anything else. Your sudden, inexplicable banana craving is more about the taste than anything else, which is odd, because you don’t like the way bananas taste. There is no rhyme or reason to your eating habits.

“Okay.” says Garnet bluntly.

She finishes her banana and throws the peel in the bin, and you can’t help but feel jealous.

You’ve never gotten that far.

* * *

You normally don’t like to ask people for food.

It’s all too rare that they have something you can actually eat, and you look rude when you ask for food and then immediately reject their offerings. Besides, years of having to sit through lunches with food you can’t eat have trained your tolerance for hunger, so you can always make it home okay.

But damn, it was a mistake to not bother bringing food today.

You’re never sleeping in again.

You catch a glimpse of purple hair out of the corner of your eye. Amethyst! She’s bound to have something. 

You’re walking home right now. Amethyst lives some two streets away from you, so you walk home together sometimes, when she’s not busy. It wouldn’t be too unusual if you stopped walking and waited for her.

When she catches up, she greets you with a fistbump and a grin. “Hey, P.”

“Hi,” you mutter. “Do you have, um, an apple or something?” You blush. “Turns out Peridot was wrong about the autism and photosynthesis.”

“Uh…” She struggles to remember the contents of her bag. “Don’t have an apple, but I got a sort of muesli bar thing, if you want that?”

Your face falls. “Um, I don’t eat muesli bars.”

“Seriously?” She raises an eyebrow. “Geez, P, why don’t you eat so many things?”

If your face was red before, it’s positively scarlet now, and you find yourself folding your arms over your body. “I have some … issues.”

She fails to pick up on your discomfort. “Ugh, whatever, dude. If you’re hungry, just eat.”

Your inner smart-alec rises up, and you mumble under your breath, “Thanks, you’ve cured my eating disorder.”

She hears you.

By the look on her face, you can tell she thinks she understands. Even if she has no idea what it actually is. She looks genuinely concerned. “So you’re scared of gaining --”

“No,” you say, a little annoyed. You run an anxious hand through your ginger hair. “Not all eating disorders are like that.”

“I know, I know,” she says, in a tone that seems to clearly imply that she doesn’t know. “But, like, what is it?”

“It’s … hard to explain,” you mumble, gripping your arms. Uncomfortable.

She doesn’t notice. “Uh, just give me the definition. Or tell me what it’s called.”

“...” Like that would help! Amethyst needs you to sit next to her in English to translate what dictionaries say, and the name alone explains little to nothing… Still, what else have you got to lose? “It’s called Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. It’s like … oh, how do I explain this …” A lightbulb goes off in your brain. “You know how sometimes you eat a food and you don’t like how it tastes?”

“You mean brussel sprouts?” That’s pretty much the only thing she dislikes. She’ll still eat it, though. She just won’t particularly enjoy it.

You nod. “Well, with me it’s more than just brussel sprouts, but I suppose that’s an accurate comparison…” You hesitate. Deep breath. Try not to be nervous. “Well, what happens when you eat brussel sprouts?”

“Uh, it’s kinda gross, I guess? Not the end of the world, but still. Ugh.”

“Must be nice…” you mumble. At her raised eyebrow, you continue, “When I try to eat foods I don’t like, I just … can’t. My body rejects it.”

“What, like, you throw up?”

You scrunch up your nose at her vulgar language. “That is one way of putting it.”

“Ugh. Whatever.” She pretends not to care about this revelation, and launches into a discussion about her annoying math teacher.

But when she offers you an apple the next day, it’s hard not to notice.


End file.
